P. Venkatesh, Director of Maveric Systems traces the development of cloud computing and its benefits to the businesses that adopt it.
August 9 2017: Cloud computing has become an essential part of the strategies of most companies; from online banking services to internet of things (IoT), almost all digital services rely completely on cloud. Big enterprises with huge data centres and complex applications now run their entire core business applications on the cloud. Integration of computing, networking, and virtualization on cloud, and movement of enterprise applications to cloud have enabled companies to stop investment in on-premises infrastructure. The future of computing has taken a concrete shape, thanks to the evolution of cloud.
This happened over clearly identifiable phases, over the last few years. The first wave of cloud was practically nothing more than hosted infrastructure services. In the second wave, cloud computing capabilities were further enhanced by making deployments easier across development, testing, and training. In its third wave, monitoring tools evolved, which let optimal resource allocation based on certain criteria. This wave further developed by adding business applications that ranged from office productivity apps such as email, collaboration, document and content management, to business apps such as those in the areas of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and channel management.
And finally, in the subsequent wave, they added analytical and decision aiding tools- such as data visualization, artificial intelligence and others.Drivers for cloud adoption
Why has Cloud today become an essential part of most companies’ technology & business strategies? Either companies are already investing heavily in it or they are planning to make substantial investments in the near future. This move towards cloud largely stems from the non-replicable bundles that cloud providers offer, often fired by the new applications or tools that are integrated with the offering.
The second and third waves made deployments and infrastructure management easier. They set benchmarks in technology, solutions and the maturity of cloud, even for the most technologically advanced institutions. The fourth wave brought about business applications concentrated mostly on peripheral applications, which most institutions prefer.Key values of cloud integration:

Deployment solutions: Companies have benefited from cloud deployment solutions, which has cut deployment times from few days to just a few hours. Also, lower operating costs would mean enhanced productivity and attractive return of investment.

Some cloud bundles come with new age solutions for encryption and data protection – in rest or transit in the form of voice, video or text formats. This makes data privacy and regulatory compliance a breeze.

More and more regulators in the finance sector have warmed up to the substantial benefits of cloud computing. Many regulators have become fintech friendly, and have relaxed the guidelines, allowing companies launch services on cloud, thus enhancing their range. This is a great stride that heralds the many revolutions to come in the finance sector.

Also, in an age where revenue growth is hard to come by, most institutions are focused on cost reduction. The potential areas are in infrastructure and new tooling. The cloud providers are willing not only to make Capex into Opex but also enhance the infrastructure with the new tooling so that the plans are in stream.

So what can be expected next with cloud? If the latest wave is to become successful, all its tools need to mature to fit specific verticals, such as banking or telecom, or be function-specific such as in CRM. Many companies have already begun taking careful steps towards it, such as Salesforce, whose Artificial Intelligence engine Einstein is maturing in tight integration to their CRM offering, and Microsoft Azure, which is looking to fit snugly into financial services realm.
In all likelihood, the next wave of cloud computing would be in business applications for particular verticals. While some solutions providers have started to move in that direction, no cloud provider has made a move so far, which will make their further developments intelligent to watch in the near future. Maveric Systems is a leading Software Testing solutions provider for the banking, insurance and telecommunications industries. The company recently won the Best Technology Provider award at the 18th Annual Banker Middle East Industry Awards for the fifth year running.